Kay Cannon Biography

Kay Cannon is an American film and television writer and actress who is best known for her work as a writer and producer for the NBC series 30 Rock, and writing the screenplay for the Pitch Perfect films. She is also a co-executive producer and writer on New Girl.

Early life

Kay Cannon, the fifth of seven siblings, was raised in Custer Park, Illinois and graduated from Reed-Custer High School. She received her BA in Theatre and MA in Education at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois.

Career

Kay got her start at the comedic training grounds The Second City, ImprovOlympic and ComedySportz Chicago. While writing and performing around Chicago, she met Tina Fey, a fellow Second City alumna. When Fey began creating the NBC comedy 30 Rock, she sought out people to join the writing staff and turned to Cannon. While at 30 Rock Kay worked her way up from staff writer to supervising producer.

She has won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedic Series for her work on 30 Rock three times, and also won a 2008 Peabody Award for her work on the show. In 2010, Cannon was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series. During this time, Cannon also worked as a co-producer on the hit feature film, Baby Mama.

She moved from New York City to LA when she signed an overall development deal with 20th Century Fox. Within that deal, she worked as a co-executive producer on New Girl and currently works as a consulting producer on Cristela. As part of her development, Cannon sold a workplace comedy The Wrecking Crew to FOX and wrote the pilot The Runt for CBS.

Cannon received rave reviews for her debut screenplay, the a cappella comedy Pitch Perfect, starring Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow and Rebel Wilson. In 2015, she wrote and co-produced the film's sequel, Pitch Perfect 2. On the performing side, Kay starred and received glowing reviews in the independent film The Little Tin Man and has guest starred on 30 Rock, New Girl, and Cristela.

Cannon has performed sketch and improv for theatres like Boom Chicago in Amsterdam, The Second City in Chicago and Las Vegas, IO (West and Chicago) and at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles and New York. One of her first jobs was as a performer at ComedySportz (Chicago). When not writing, Cannon currently performs at the UCB Theater in the popular improv show, "Brand New Ball".

Personal life

She is divorced from actor Jason Sudeikis.

Cannon married Eben Russell on January 1, 2012 and the couple has one child together.

Filmography

• Pitch Perfect (2012) "? writer
• Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) "? writer, producer, cameo
• Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) "? writer
• Girlboss (2017) "? writer, producer
• Let It Snow (2017) "? writer
• The Pact (TBA) "? director